Making soap led me to needing to sell it. What better way than a website?
It sounded so easy when I started, but there was a pretty steep learning curve in getting my skills to the point where I could manage a website. My first website, for Chandler’s Soaps was actually built by the main man in my life, Jere. He hand-coded it (no Dreamweaver or FrontPage for him!). Of course, I had to “snooper-vise” and in doing so the foundations of a new career were laid.
As time went on and I had to update products and information, I learned how to do it myself. First the simple things, then more complex. Then my logic skills and desire to do things only once took over… and I started turning my experience with Microsoft Access into the ability to make dynamic webpages utilizing information kept in a database using php. And so a web-geek was hatched.
Since that time, I’ve studied and practiced and – with a great deal of thanks to L. Ron Hubbard’s Study Technology – have become a pretty proficient computer nerd.
Webmastering Skills
My repertoire of skills has grown over the years, most of it learned when needed in order to accomplish a specific job. I do a lot of work for my guy, Jere, and his business Words In a Row. Most of the interactive website work that customers request gets passed to me and I do the work.
- HTML and CSS
HTML (“hyper text markup language”) is the language used to make web pages. I code everything “by hand” (not using a WISYWIG tool). It’s much like the old-school word processing when making something bold meant putting a “bold” marker at the start and end. I guess I am telling my age by mentioning I did word processing when it was a “new thing” – just a step up from an electric typewriter! CSS (“cascading style sheets”) is what’s used on a web site to keep the styles all the same from page to page. - PHP
PHP is a programming language that makes interactive websites and websites that can pull information from a database and feed it into a webpage. Have to say that this is my favorite language to use (although it ties in closely with HTML and CSS in order to display the information on the page). - JavaScript
I’m currently learning javascript and using the jQuery libraries to create a new kind of interactive website – one that changes when you click on different things. Unlike php, which requires a page to load to get it to change, javascript allows the page to change more quickly based on what the user is doing. Pop-up windows, things that move and shift when you click or move the mouse – that sort of thing. - Word Press
I’ve gotten pretty proficient at WordPress blogs (like this one). It’s amazing what can be done with a content management system like WordPress. The trick is figuring out how all the little pieces go together.
Some of the websites I have created or worked on are:
- Miami Condo Lifestyle This is a complex site that I built for a Words In a Row customer. It displays all sorts of information about condos in Miami, pulled from a database. It also displays in English and Spanish, all done with php programming and the information pulled from a database and included files. (I worked on the functionality and display – there was a preofessional graphic designer who did the site design.)
- MarieGale.com This site is also one of my babies. It was in a different format with a blog, but I’ve just recently changed it over so it is completely in the “blog” format, using WordPress.
I do web work for others, generally working through my guy, Jere, who handles the business side of it through his business Words In A Row. His expertise is website marketing, specializing in Search Engine Optimization and making Search Engine Friendly sites. Its great because we work well together.
If you need any web work done, feel free to email me or Jere (jere@wordsinarow.com).